Arista Networks

Andy Bechtolsheim is a hardware genius, so you can be confident you are building products people will buy.

Jayshree Ullal knows the networking business like the back of her hand. Andy builds it, Jayshree sells it.

David Cheriton's insight into software architecture has provided a way of decoupling processes that is unique in the networking industry and removes so much of the painful overhead in network OS engineering. It adds up to a promising situation for pre-IPO stock options.

Software culture: Open, honest, helpful, collaborative, good tools, emphasis on no-nonsense productivity. The software management team is made up of people who really get and appreciate software and support software engineers in creating great software.

Interesting product space: Data center networking is growing 30%+ per year, and the transitions to higher-speed Ethernet and merchant silicon are creating dislocations in the market. Networking software is just cool --- managing high-performance silicon, running complex distributed state management protocols.

You work on products that your non-techie friends are unlikely to understand. It's not as sexy as social networking or whatever.

Preserving the culture through the kind of growth we are experiencing will take focus and commitment. We cannot be victims of our own success.